


out on the terrace

by briony_larkin



Series: if we go down, then we go down together [2]
Category: The Tudors (TV)
Genre: F/M, anne is a babe, better than henry deserves tbh, mentions of jane and jane/henry of course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 09:52:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10488105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briony_larkin/pseuds/briony_larkin
Summary: anne and henry have a much-needed talk, where much is rehashed and not a ton is solved.





	

**Author's Note:**

> @ everyone who encouraged me to write more of this, i hope you're sorry bc there's going to be at least one more part of this, possibly two.
> 
> minor edits 1/13/18

There's a pressure on the bed, to the right of me. I frown. I couldn't see anyone with me in my...

What's the right word for it, anyway? Dream? Vision?

I make to turn my head to see what's on the bed, and a red-hot pain slices through my neck. My hands fly up to cover my throat. I wince and shift my whole body instead of trying to turn my head again.

Henry's head is cradled between his hands, face down on the sheets. 

My tongue traces over my dry, cracked lips. The tang of blood and salt overwhelms me for a few seconds. My lips work and I try to speak Henry’s name.

Nothing comes out.

I struggle, forgetting what I was trying to say in favor of saying anything at all. Still, no sound escape my lips. Panic sets into my heart and quickens its steady beat. Is this permanent? Have I been permanently damaged, in any way? What about my child?

My hand flies down to cup the tiny, almost imperceptible swell of my stomach. It is still firm under my hand. My baby is still there, at least.

A sharp, rapid beeping registers in some distant corner of my mind. Swept away as I am with my anxiety and preoccupation, I don’t notice. The noise does nothing to disrupt my train of thought, much less calm my thoughts or my heart.

And then, hands are covering mine and someone whispers my name like a prayer. The world around me comes back into focus and there are Henry’s beautiful bright eyes, watching me with such concern. His are the hands covering mine, his are the lips speaking my name as if I am a deity, as if I alone can grant absolution and sanctify him.

He slides onto the bed beside me and pulls me into his arms. I am not sure that I want his arms around me. (When was the last time they were around Jane?) But I lay my head on his chest and I hear our heartbeats and it is all I have ever wanted, so I let him hold me.

I let it be.

They let me out of the hospital the next night. Henry takes me home.

(Home, home, what does that mean, home? Where is my home? With the father I haven't talked to in a year? With the sister I haven't seen since her wedding? With the man who doesn't love me anymore?)

I change into clothes that are not a hospital gown and head out to the balcony. Should I leave, I think that is what I would miss the most about the apartment.

(Not Henry, not Henry, don't think of him right now, don't deal with it until you must.)

My light pink sleep shorts are almost too small. They cut into the skin above my bellybutton. I slip my hand under the waistband and rub at the skin it has marked. A light, crisp wind blows through my thin, white cotton shirt. It's very warm outside for a night this early in the spring. As if the breeze is blowing away the heavy city air, it is a remarkably clear night.

I can see the stars. I can't remember the last time I saw the stars.

A wine glass rests heavy in my hand, dark with thick red liquid. It isn't wine, it's grape juice. After everything, I know at least that I want my baby. I don't think I know much else.

The door to the terrace slides open. I whip my head around, eyes wide. The glass slips from my hand and shatters, crystal with red blood seeping from it lying on the tile. My only thought is to protect myself and my child.

My hands scrabble for the largest piece of broken glass I can find. Air hisses from my mouth when the glass slices ragged across my palm. I don't feel the pain. I don't feel anything. I don't know anything except I have to fight.

Then there are hands, unfathomably gentle, removing the shard from my grasp and stroking back my hair. It is familiar and comforting. My shoulders drop and I can hear again.

“It's okay, Anne. It's just me, only me. I'm sorry I scared you.”

I pull away as soon as I come back to myself.

“Are you okay?” Henry asks.

I mean to say I’m fine, okay, good, whatever. “Do you love me?”

“What brought this on?”

“I saw you,” I say, barely louder than a whisper. Tears hang in my eyes, diamonds dangling, but I refuse to let them shine on my cheeks. 

“What do you mean?” His face is perfectly blank, perfectly controlled like it never used to be. I wish he'd never learned to do that.

I never learned to do that. I look away, training my eyes carefully on the stars. Looking at him right now would be impossible. “With Jane,” and my voice trips over that name, _her_ name, throat tight with tears, “at the party. I saw you.”

The world around me sparkles and it seems like I am surrounded by jewels. Diamonds, on the ground, in my eyes, in the sky, rubies pooled in my palms, sapphires making up the fabric of the night and (I won't look at them but I know they're there) Henry's eyes.

He laughs. Anger slices through me, sharp and hot. “I don't see what's so funny,” I say tightly. Better to be angry than sad. Much better.

“No, it's not funny,” he says, and he does look a little contrite, at least. “It’s just that I think that's a misunderstanding. It surprised me is all.”

My eyebrows arch in disbelief, coal-black lines smudged onto my pale face. “And what would this misunderstanding be?”

“I never made a move on Jane.”

“She was sitting on your lap, Henry!” A drop of blood falls from my clenched first onto the tile. “How could I misunderstand that?!”

“You're hurt,” he says, and he grabs my wrist so quickly, I'd swear I never saw his hand move. Gently, he pries my fingers away from my palm. The sound he makes when he sees the cut... It's like he's been cut himself. “Hold on.”

He’s off the terrace and inside lightening-fast, and I have to sit there and wait for him, I suppose. Another drop of blood falls onto the tile, puddling right next to the juice. The colors are almost the same, the mere difference between... well, blood and grape juice.

It doesn't take him long to come back out, a navy blue washcloth draped over his left wrist, two bowls and a roll of bandages clutched in his hands. He grabs a pillow from a chair, places it on the ground, and sits on it, right in front of me, shoulders between my knees.

He sets the bowls down and strokes my arm, holding my wrist so carefully that tears prick my eyes all over again. Henry holds the cloth under my hand and carefully tips one bowl so the liquid-- warm water-- pours over my palm, into the cut. The water seeps into the cloth, making it look black instead of blue.

One of the dry corners of the washcloth is dipped into the other bowl. Henry dabs at the cut with it. It stings, and my fingers reflexively curl in.

“Hydrogen peroxide,” he says with a note of apology. He pours a little directly from the bowl into the cut, then pats my palm dry with the last little dry bit of the cloth.

The air begins to feel tense and heavy on my skin as he sits between my legs, focused intently on wrapping my palm perfectly.

“Is that better?” Henry looks up at me. My breath catches and feelings swirl in my stomach, bright red lust and golden love and dark blue sadness mixed with heavy gray confusion.

“Yes,” I whisper, hardly able to speak for emotion.

His hand comes up and cups my cheek, his thumb stroking my cheekbone. I close my eyes and lean into it, wishing I could let it all be again. But I can’t. I am stronger now, and I need the truth. So when I feel the warmth of his lips approaching mine, I turn away. Not now. Should I let him kiss me now, I will be lost. I cannot afford to be lost.

“Right,” he says. The disappointment in his voice is a needle stuck straight in my heart. “I should explain.” He pulls his hand from me, and I allow myself to mourn the loss for precisely five seconds. Any longer, and I will fall. I cannot fall. “Jane tripped and fell into my lap. I pushed her off, but she must have been there long enough for you to see.”

Something dark and poisonous bubbles inside me. “Oh, I’m sure she _tripped_ ,” I spit.

“You don’t believe me?”

“It’s not you that I don’t believe,” I inform him icily, “although now that you mention it, you must admit that the scene at the party was not the _beginning_ of things.”

 

He tugs his bottom lip between his teeth. To hear him say no, it wasn't, the thought never entered his head, that was all I wanted. But even more, I could not have him lie to me. No, he would not lie to me, not now.

“You're right,” he says, like the words break his heart just like they break mine. Though perhaps that's only wishful thinking. “It wasn't.”

Of course. Of course it wasn't, I knew it wasn't, but hell if it didn't hurt me all the same. I can't even respond. I only nod and turn my face away.

“Anne...” he whispers. His hand reaches out for me, but I flinch away. “I'm so sorry.” And oh, he sounds so broken, so small, my heart calls out to him.

No. The heart has no mind, no logic. I cannot...

I cannot.

“If I could change it, Anne, I swear to you, I would. I decided I didn’t want to love you anymore, so I tried to love her instead. But God help me, Anne, you are the only person I could ever love.”

A bitter laugh that borders hysterical escapes me.

“No, it’s true,” he insists. “I never loved Katherine, you know. My parents wanted me to, but I didn’t. And then you were there, and I swear, the second I spoke to you, I loved you.”

“No. No, you couldn’t have me, and you wanted me, that’s all.” I say it firmly, but I’m not sure which of us I am trying to convince.

“It was more than that. I felt something for you that I’d never felt for anyone before. I wanted to be around you all the time, I didn’t want anyone else, didn’t care about anyone else.” He takes my hands in his, and I let him. “It was only you, Anne.”

 

The tears slip from my eyes and I do not try to stop them anymore. It doesn’t matter. (Does anything?) “Obviously, it wasn’t only me.”

Though no one else is on the terrace with us, or even in our apartment, I can feel _her_ presence here, the third person in our relationship these last months. I would give almost anything to never feel her between us ever again.

“I promise you, I never did anything with her.”

I don't believe him.

“No, really.” His thumb sweeps across the back of my hand. “I started to give up. I know it. I fucked up, I know I did. But please, Anne, I swear to you I will never do that again.”

I don't know if I believe him, but I want to. I want to, oh-so-badly.

“You don't have to believe me right now, but please, give me a chance, and I'll prove it to you, I promise.” The look in his eyes is like he loves me. Heaven knows I love him.

“I'll stay,” I tell him simply, but it is enough. We know what we truly mean.

“Go ahead inside,” he says, planting a kiss on my forehead. “I'll clean up the wine.”

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy the madness, other buckets.
> 
> (that's a b99 reference. just fyi.)


End file.
